Baba Daud: a Turkish scholar in Aceh

Abstract

This paper introduces Shaikh Daud b. Ismail b. Mustafa Rumî (a.k.a. Baba Davud or Mustafa ar-Rumi), an Islamic scholar believed to have lived in Banda Aceh sometime between 1650 and 1750, to the larger Muslim world. This person is important for three reasons: (1) Baba Daud, who lived at the time of the Aceh Darussalam Sultanate (16th-17th Century) became a leading student and a religious caliph of Abdurrauf as-Singkilî (a.k.a. Teungku Syiah Kuala), a well-known Acehnese religious scholar; (2) his Risalah Masailal Muhtadi li Ikhwanil Mubtadi has been taught at Islamic institutions in Aceh and around the Malay world; and (3) no scholarly works have been written about him, despite the striking fact that he and Syiah Kuala co-founded the Dayah Manyang Leupue institution, to which he subsequently became affilated. In order to analyze him as an Islamic scholar, I provide information on the development of the Islamic sciences and the existence of Islamic scholars among within Aceh’s various sultanates. For that reason, the early period of Islam and the region’s subsequent Islamization until the seventeenth century are considered significant. In this context, it is vital to emphasize the Islamic scientific circles in the sultanate during the seventeenth century.